


Five Times Holly Thought Jessica Was Crazy (And One Time She Didn't)

by cookie_full_of_arsenic



Category: The Nice Guys (2016)
Genre: Family Feels, Getting Together, Holly is not so sure, Holly-centric, Homophobic Language, Jessica Ships It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 20:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14089146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookie_full_of_arsenic/pseuds/cookie_full_of_arsenic
Summary: Jessica has a theory about Holly's dad and Mr Healy. Holly is not convinced. Until she is.





	Five Times Holly Thought Jessica Was Crazy (And One Time She Didn't)

**Author's Note:**

> I watched this movie three times without a single shippy thought in my little aromantic brain. Then I discovered the fandom, and this fic is the result. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> This is rated T for swears and offensive language.

1.

Jessica talks a load of crap when she’s tired.

Yeah, that’s the simplest explanation.

It’s well past midnight, and the house is quiet. Mr Healy left hours ago, and Holly’s dad is asleep, or at least in bed – she can’t hear him stumbling around the house, at any rate. Holly is on the fuzzy edge of sleep herself, when Jessica whispers “Hol, you still awake?” from her sleeping bag on the bedroom floor.

“I am now,” Holly mumbles.

“I was just thinking…”

“Mm?”

“Do you think your dad and Mr Healy like each other?”

“Yeah, they do. They argue a lot, but that’s just the way men are. They care about each other, like, deep down.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, do you think they like-like each other?”

Suddenly, Holly is completely awake.

“What?!”

“Shh!” In the darkness, Holly can just about see Jessica pressing a finger to her mouth, then turning her face into the pillow to smother her giggles.

“Jess, are you high? Did you get into your sister’s stash?”

“No!”

“Why would you even think that?”

“I dunno, it’s just … the way they look at each other, sometimes.”

“I think your brain needs some sleep.”

Jessica’s brain seems to agree with this, because she is asleep within ten minutes. Holly, on the other hand, lies awake for a long time. She replays the earlier events of the evening, when Mr Healy taught them how to play poker, using Oreos as gambling chips. Her Dad had been the first to lose all his cookies, and he hadn’t been happy about it. He pouted and sulked, and then made a grab for one of Mr Healy’s cookies, stuffing it into his mouth and grinning like the cat that got the cream. Mr Healy had looked at him like … well, not like anything.

They don’t look at each other in any particular way. Jessica’s talking out of her ass. End of story.

 

2.

Holly’s parents loved each other. Her dad might not have been the perfect husband, but he loved her mom, like, a lot. Holly has never doubted that, and she sure as hell doesn’t want to start doubting it now. There isn’t a whole lot she can rely on.

At Monday lunchtime, when they’re done eating and they’re wandering aimlessly around the schoolyard, Holly brings it up.

“So, you know what you said on Saturday night about … about my dad and Mr Healy?”

“Yeah.”

“Were you trying to be funny?”

“No. I mean, it is kinda funny, but I wasn’t joking.”

Holly gives Jessica the sternest look she can manage, and says “My dad isn’t gay. He likes women. He likes women too much, if anything.”

“Oh, I know. But you do realise some men like both, right?” Holly is sceptical about this. Surely, if such people existed, she would know about them. She would definitely know about them before Jessica. Her scepticism must be showing on her face because Jessica continues, “Seriously. My sister knows a guy who’s like that.”

Questions start crowding Holly’s mind, but before she can ask any of them, that little jerk Stevie Adler runs up behind them and pinches Jessica’s butt. Jessica shrieks and Stevie tears away, laughing. So Holly has to be a good friend and yell threats at him, which totally derails the conversation.

That evening, Holly sits opposite her dad at the kitchen table, eating Chinese take-out.

“Anything interesting happen at school today?” he asks, through a mouthful of chicken chow mein.

“Not really. Stevie Adler pinched Jessica’s butt so I had to yell at him.”

“Little creep.”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure he’s a fag, and he just pinches girls’ butts ‘cause he doesn’t want anyone to know.”

Her dad takes a moment to swallow his noodles, then says, “That’s a quarter in the swear jar, young lady.”

“What did I say?”

“You know what you said.”

“…”

“The F-word.”

“Fag isn’t the F-word!”

“Okay, now it’s fifty cents.”

Holly stares at him incredulously. His face is difficult to read, but he’s obviously not joking. “Fine,” she spits, getting up with a noisy scrape of her chair, and fishing a few loose quarters from the pocket of her jeans. “Oops, I said another F-word. I guess that’s seventy-five cents, then.”

Her dad rolls his eyes and mutters “Nice. Real mature,” as she unscrews the lid of the swear jar (it used to contain peanut butter) and drops three quarters in.

There are a lot of questions she could ask. She could ask why he’s being such a hypocrite – he swears all the time, so why isn’t she entitled to the occasional bad word? She could ask why he’s acting like a normal parent, when his idea of a proper family dinner is Chinese take-out at 9.30pm. Instead, she asks,

“Why don’t you want me saying that word?”

“Because it’s a disgusting word.”

Disgusting. Somehow this makes her even angrier. Holly always figured her dad was an open-minded kind of guy, but apparently he’s squeamish about the idea of men loving other men. So much for Jessica’s crazy theory. She opens her mouth to argue, but he gets there first. “Don’t you dare argue with me. You can talk how you want with your friends, but while you’re in my house you’re gonna talk like a fucking lady.”

Might as well make it a dollar.

“Fuck you!”

Holly drops another quarter into the swear jar and storms off to her room.

 

3.

The thing about being thirteen is that just when you think you know it all, you’re forced to learn, like, a hundred new things all at once. Holly doesn’t usually mind, but learning stuff from Jessica is kinda humiliating. Like having Jessica tell her that the word “fag” is offensive to gay men, and that someone who likes both guys and girls is called “bisexual”, rather than “half-gay”.

The swear jar incident seems a little different now, but Holly decides not to overthink it. Who the hell knows what goes on inside her dad’s booze-addled brain? Instead, she comes to a decision, quickly and cleanly – if her dad was bisexual, she wouldn’t mind.

That doesn’t mean she believes Jessica’s theory about her dad and Mr Healy though. She’ll never believe that. Not until Jessica can show her some concrete evidence.

Everything ticks along normally for a few days, until Sunday morning. Holly’s dad doesn’t emerge from his room for a long time (nothing new there) so Holly sits alone in front of the TV, eating grape jelly on toast and watching cartoons that she’s too old for and would never admit to watching. At 11am, she gets a little antsy and bangs on her dad’s bedroom door, shouting “Dad, you’re wasting the day!”

No answer.

Holly pushes the door open, revealing a Dad-sized lump huddled under the bedclothes. She asks the lump if it’s hungover, but it doesn’t respond. She pads across the deep carpet and kneels beside the bed. Her dad somehow managed to sleep through her shouting, but there’s a tension in his face that suggests this is not a peaceful sleep. There are tiny beads of sweat on his forehead. Cautiously, she puts a hand to his face, and sure enough, he’s burning up. Crap.

She yanks the covers off him. He squirms a little and mutters something that sounds like “It’s not a worm, it’s a highly-evolved noodle.” Fever dreams, Holly thinks. She watches him curl slowly into the foetal position and start to shiver, despite the heat radiating off his skin.

She’s been in plenty of scarier situations but still, Holly kinda feels like crying. Because it’s so unfair. She shouldn’t have to keep being the adult. It would be real easy to go to pieces right now, but instead she goes to the phone and calls Mr Healy.

The minutes between Mr Healy’s “I’ll be right there kid, just hang tight,” and the ring of the doorbell pass painfully slowly. She sits next to her dad’s bed, fanning his overheated face with a folded up newspaper and telling him (and herself) that everything is gonna be okay.

Then Mr Healy shows up and everything is okay. He presses a hand to Holland’s forehead, makes a disapproving noise at the back of his throat, then snaps into action. He needs Holly’s help to find things – a basin, a sponge, the Tylenol – but he’s calm and collected the whole time, explaining what he’s doing “We’re gonna use tepid water instead of cold water. Cold water’ll make him shiver too much,” and reassuring Holly that her dad will be back to his old self soon enough, so she might as well enjoy the peace and quiet.

Holly perches on the bed and watches, fascinated, as Mr Healy sponges her dad’s face and neck with the lukewarm water. It’s weird to see a bruiser like him acting like a nurse, or a mom. Funny, and … kind of adorable.

“Mmm, I love you so much, little starfish,” mumbles Holland, and brings a hand up to the cool sponge that is currently caressing his cheek. Holly giggles explosively, and Holland finally opens his eyes.

“Holland? You with me, buddy?” says Jackson.

“What’s goin’ on?”

“You’re sick,” Holly supplies. “You have a really high fever.”

“I was underwater…”

“Shhh, you’re okay,” says Mr Healy, stroking Holland’s sweat-damp hair. “But we really need to cool you down. Is it okay to take this off?” He tugs at the hem of Holland’s wife-beater, looking sweetly awkward. Holland nods weakly and struggles out of the garment with more than a little help from Mr Healy, who carries on sponging him with the cool water.

“I can take over, if you like,” Holly offers.

“I think you should keep your distance. No sense in you catching whatever he’s got.”

“But if you keep taking care of him, _you_ might catch what he’s got.”

“Not gonna happen kid. I caught everything growing up. Now my immune system’s like Fort Knox.”

Mr Healy stays all day, while Holland’s fever subsides gradually at first, and then all at once. As soon as he’s got the strength and alertness to prop himself up in bed, he starts coughing violently. Mr Healy mutters darkly about chest infections, and teaches Holly how to make beef broth.

At some point during the strange intimacy of the day, Holly stops thinking of him as Mr Healy and starts thinking of him as just Healy. Maybe she ought to call him Jackson, but Healy is what her dad calls him, and it seems to fit him pretty well.

When she recounts all this to Jessica, down the phone, Jessica is weirdly delighted.

“ _See?!_ I told you they like each other.”

“What the hell, man? Taking care of someone when they’re sick isn’t romantic.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it’s not. Dad was all sweaty and gross, and then he started coughing up a bunch of mucus.”

“Ew.”

“Exactly.”

“Mr Healy must be pretty crazy about your dad to take care of him when he’s all snotty and disgusting.”

Jesus, there’s no arguing with Jessica’s special brand of logic. But Holly has to try. “Look, you’re acting like the only reason to take care of someone is because you wanna, like, kiss them and stuff. Do you really think people wouldn’t ever take care of a friend? You really think people wouldn’t do stuff just to be _kind?_ ”

Silence.

Then, “Maybe. Okay, yeah, maybe you’re right. Maybe people would take care of a sick friend. I mean, I’d take care of you if you got sick.”

“Aw, Jess.”

“I still think they’re totally in love with each other though.”

Holly mimes shooting herself in the head.

 

4.

Holland is sick as a dog for a week, and coughs like a dying man for two weeks. After fifteen days, he’s finally able to smoke a cigarette without bringing up half a lung, and decides to celebrate this fact by taking Holly out to the bowling alley.

He invites Healy of course, and Holly invites Jessica. Holly likes it when the four of them hang out together. They’re like a weird little family, made up of leftovers and cast-offs from other families. A patchwork family.

Though Holly is disinclined to think of Jessica as her sister when Jess whispers in her ear, “Mr Healy’s totally checking out your dad’s ass.”

Holly looks automatically from Healy, sitting on the end of the bench, to her Dad, who’s bowling really badly. Admittedly, Healy seems to be watching him, but there’s no reason to think he’s watching that particular _part_ of him.

“Jess, you need a boyfriend. Or a romance novel,” says Holly dismissively.

Holland bowls another gutter ball and swears loudly. He returns to the bench, looking shamefaced and frustrated.

“You’re twisting too much,” says Healy, and Holland glares at him. “I’m just sayin’. You gotta keep your hips parallel with the foul line and the ball in line with your shoulder.”

Holland looks down at his torso in confusion, as if he’s suddenly found himself in possession of a body for the first time, and has no idea what to do with it. Healy takes pity on him.

“Come on, I’ll show you,” he says, and leads Holland up to the foul line with a medium-weight ball. He manhandles Holland into position – a hand on his right forearm, another on his left hip, holding him like they’re a pair of unconventional, inelegant dancers. Still, Healy must be doing something right because Holland miraculously bowls a strike.

His face, when he turns around, is a picture. Victory-flushed and grinning like an idiot. Holly can’t help but grin back, and she keeps grinning until she notices that Jess isn’t grinning at all. Nope, Jess is smirking. Smirking like she’s been gifted a persuasive piece of evidence for her dumbass theory. Which she hasn’t. Healy just doesn’t want her dad embarrassing him by sucking at bowling.

 

5.

 Jessica has finally given up trying to persuade Holly that her dad and Healy have the hots for each other. Which oughta be great. Holly oughta be really pleased about that. The thing is, though, Jessica has given up because Holland has somehow got himself a girlfriend. And Holly finds that she’s not too happy about that.

The woman’s name is Linda, and she wears peach-coloured sweaters and has peach-coloured fingernails. She has a tendency to speak her mind, which is a quality Holly usually respects in adults, especially women. Unfortunately, Linda’s mind is not really worth speaking. The first time she met Holly, she asked “Now why on God’s green earth would a pretty girl like you wear overalls?” and then proceeded to tell her how to dress “if you want to catch a good man when you’re old enough.”

Holland is on a date with her tonight, and isn’t planning on being back until late, so Healy’s hanging out with her. She’s too old to need a babysitter, but ever since the whole John Boy incident, her dad refuses to even consider leaving her home alone at night. It’s nice having Healy around, anyway. They watch one of those old Westerns he likes, and there’s something soothing about it that makes Holly drowsy. She sinks back into the couch cushions, blissfully comfortable.

“What do you think of Linda?” says Healy, out of nowhere.

Holly snaps back to alertness. She briefly considers saying something tactful, then decides against it. “I don’t like her.”

“Oh. That’s too bad.”

“Why do you ask? Do you think she’s gonna be around for a long time?”

“That’s hard to say. I think your dad really wants you to like her. I think he likes the idea of you having a … a woman around.”

Holly’s heart sinks into her high tops. “You mean a mom. He likes the idea of me having a new mom.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

No. Hell, no. Fuck, no. That woman is not her mom. Nobody can replace her mom, especially not that cotton-candy-brained Linda.

“Holly, you okay?”

“Not really. I wish Dad didn’t make such stupid decisions.”

Their eyes meet, and for, like, half a second Holly notices something in Healy’s face that she’s never seen before. A sadness, but a weird, mixed-up kind of sadness that she doesn’t recognise. Something old-fashioned. The word “yearning” floats through her head.

“You and me both, kid. But que sera sera, right?”

It’s a rhetorical question, so Holly doesn’t answer. Instead, she leans half against the couch cushions and half against Healy and stares blankly at the TV.

She can see, with horrible clarity, what is going to happen. Her dad will start bringing Linda back here after their dates, and Holly will have to hide in her bedroom while they canoodle on the couch. Then they’ll get married, and Linda will move in and start properly fucking up Holly’s life. She’ll be aggravating as hell, and Holly will have to escape to Jessica’s a lot more often. She’ll buy Holly some awful clothes, and then bitch about it to her dad when Holly doesn’t wear them. She’ll call Holly ungrateful and stubborn, and then her dad will call Holly ungrateful and stubborn. She’ll redecorate. She’ll try to change everything. She’ll try to change Holly.

Healy won’t be able to do anything to help, of course, because there won’t be any room for him in this new version of the March household. He and Holland will become nothing more than business partners, and he and Holly will become little more than strangers.

It sucks. It really fucking sucks. Because Holly has come to think of Healy as family. At first, she saw him as a kind of undomesticated bachelor uncle. But since her dad got sick, she’s started to think of him as … almost a _parent_. Like a second dad.

It doesn’t make any sense, because Healy is not dad material. He’s a bruiser. He used to beat people up for money. And there’s a part of Holly’s brain – one she’s long since stopped listening to – that knows exactly what happened to the guy with the blue face. And yet, despite all of this, Holly feels safer with Healy than with anyone else in the world.

So there it is. You can’t choose who you love, it just happens. Holly wishes – wishes harder than she’s wished for anything in a long, long time – that Healy could stay. She’s actually starting to think it’d be kind of cool if Jessica’s crazy theory were true.

 

+1.

Holly wakes to a dull, crashing sound, followed by some faint cursing. She’s up and out of bed at once, moving on autopilot, ready to put her probably-drunk dad to bed. She’s already on the landing when she remembers that Healy is there to pick up the pieces. For tonight, at least.

She crouches down at the top of the stairs, not wanting to be seen. Holland must’ve knocked over the end table by the door, because the bowl of loose change has spilled over the carpet and Holland is scrabbling around, collecting it and tossing it back in the bowl.

Healy appears in the hall. There’s a soft snort of laughter as Holland picks up the last of the change. “One of these days, you’re gonna go twenty-four hours without knocking anything over. And when that happens, we’re gonna crack a bottle of champagne.”

Holland stands up, a little awkward, but surprisingly steady on his feet. Maybe he’s less drunk than Holly thought. He certainly doesn’t have that dazed, goofy look on his face. In fact, he doesn’t look happy at all.

“You okay?” Healy asks.

“Yeah. I, um … I don’t think Linda and I are gonna see each other anymore.”

Holly’s instinctive reaction is to punch the air, then go back to bed and revel in her small victory. But there’s something about her dad that’s worrying her. His hands are fluttering nervously at his sides. Healy ushers him into the lounge and sits him down on the couch, and Holly moves stealthily to sit at the top of the stairs. Out of sight, as long as she keeps her feet tucked in, but just about able to see what’s going on.

She watches her dad clumsily light up a cigarette and take a long, steadying drag. “What happened?” asks Healy. His voice is gentle, but he can’t quite hide his curiosity.

“Nothing dramatic. It just wasn’t working. And I can’t be wasting my time, y’know, I mean we’re not getting any younger here.”

“Mm-hm. Those looks aren’t gonna last,” Healy teases, earning an ineffectual shove from Holland.

“What I mean is, I have a daughter. I have to think about who I want in her life and whether … whether or not that person’s gonna be around long-term. You get it, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I understand.”

Healy is frowning, gazing at his feet, and Holly feels a sudden surge of panic. Everything seems fragile, like the air itself could break into a million pieces. She must keep perfectly still and silent, and listen to her dad, who has started talking very quickly.

“Honestly, though, I think the main reason it wasn’t gonna work with Linda is I kinda got it bad for someone else.”

“Really?”

“Mm.”

“Who?”

Holland exhales smoke carefully away from Healy, and stares at him. Just stares. And Holly figures it out a split second before Healy does. The realisation is so sudden that Holly makes a little squeak of surprise. There’s no danger of either of the men hearing her though – they’re staring at each other like nothing else exists, and then holy crap, they’re _kissing_. They’re kissing like people in movies kiss.

Holly is pretty sure she shouldn’t be watching this, so she slips quietly back into her bedroom, closes the door and leans against it. She’s a little surprised to find herself grinning like a Jack-o’-lantern.

The cynicism she’s inherited from her dad tells her to calm down. Stop smiling. Don’t go dancing around your room like a little kid. A kiss is just a kiss. It doesn’t mean forever, and God knows there are plenty of ways for her dad or Healy or both of them to screw this up. But just now, that cynical voice is strangely easy to ignore.

Really, the only downside is that Jessica is going to be a giant pain in the ass when Holly tells her she was right all along.


End file.
